


Ceased Function

by BriiTaylor



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Flashbacks, Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 08:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2342378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriiTaylor/pseuds/BriiTaylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after the fall of SHIELD, Bucky approaches Steve at Peggy's grave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ceased Function

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Broken](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1419240) by [WordsmithDee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordsmithDee/pseuds/WordsmithDee). 



Dark. It was all he could remember from before he saw the man on the Helicarrier. Dark, and pain. The kind of pain that made his head spin and his stomach lurch just to imagine it, but once he had pulled the man out of the water—the man who had called himself a friend—he tried.

Deeply entrenched inside an abandoned water tunnel, his prosthesis glinting in the low light, he tried. God, he tried. Tried to think back before the dark, before the ECT had scrambled the synapses in his brain and forced him to forget, and before the cold—that ever-present cold in his past, terrifying and intense—and he tried to remember.

Bucky, the man had said. He turned the name over and over in his head, occasionally whispering it to himself, listening to the name echo through the space. James Buchannan Barnes. It was familiar, in a sense, like the kill sequences he used to take down his targets, but less concrete, less drilled into every muscle into his body. He supposed if he had a muscle in his brain, he might remember it more easily.

James Buchannan Barnes. He rubs his eyes with thumb and forefinger of the human hand, resisting the urge to scrub his eyes out. He thought to the fight on the carrier, and had the faint image of two little boys fighting over a baseball, a small, scrawny blonde boy screaming at him to _give it here, Bucky, give it_ —

He stands up, growling at nothing. He’s not going to think about it anymore. It made his head hurt.

_Two years later_

He’d been tracking the man from the river for months. After sneaking into the museum, he’d learned that the man was Steve Rogers—captain America—and that he was Bucky Barnes. He’d read the informational placard a million times, memorizing it after three read-throughs, staring at his face and glaring at the dummy dressed in the clothes that were supposedly his. He’d even asked a museum worker where he could get more information about this Bucky Barnes, and he’d read his entire life’s story.

After that, things had come in pieces. Not whole memories, exactly, but shards of memories, not in order, never in order, but they had started to come in. A flash of white teeth and blonde hair, a military uniform while he drank whiskey in a bar in the 1940’s. A train, moving lightning fast as he zipped down to meet it...

James Buchannan Barnes.

...The pain of a dirty, dank room, the echo of his screams as he was injected with live fire, the staggering breath being ripped from him as he was brought to the brink of death and then yanked back...

James Buchannan Barnes.

...A fall, farther than he ever thought possible, and surviving, aching, bleeding, his arm was gone but he was _alive…_

James

...The heat of a fire, the fear of the knowledge that it would consume him, trying and failing to force himself to his feet, feebly repeating his serial number and nothing else, just as he had been trained...

_Buchannan..._

...Being found. He grits his teeth against those particular shards as he crouches deeper into the shadow of huge willow tree, disguised against the bark, the dirt and grease breaking up his silhouette. He watches as Steve Rogers walks over to the grave marker, holding a respectable bouquet of flowers.

Bucky.

Steve. If anything, it had been memories of Steve Rogers that came back the most clearly. Steve Rogers, skinny and pale and sweet, the only person he ever met that was honestly kind and wanted to do good without being wide-eyed and stupid. The memories with Steve Rogers were gentler, happier, and he spent more time with them in the recesses of his mind.

…Steve and him walking back from a funeral, Steve’s hands shoved deep in his pockets as he tried to cut a manly figure despite being 5’2 and slender and Bucky, his heart beating fast with something unnamed as he tried to pass it off as genuine concern...

_Bucky?_

...Steve pulling him off of the table in the hell hole Zola left him…

Steve.

Just Steve. Twenty four months and in all of that time the memories of Steve were the warmest memories he had. He watches Steve look around, and the memories push him off of the branch, silently dropping him to the ground, and because he doesn’t want to stop himself he steps forward, out of the shadows, his feet stumbling towards Steve’s direction, and Steve has already turned towards him. The familiar, empty voice in his head begins to chant, like it always did— _distance, 20 meters and closing; object carrying weapon; weapon, 9mm Glock handgun, perfect condition, serial number SHIELD1768US; weapon holstered, safety on; previous drawing time: 0.653 seconds; shooter accuracy, 99.99%; threat imminent, prepare for attack—_ and Bucky cracks, his voice hoarse and scared, but anything, anything to drown out the voice—“Steve?”

Steve’s eyes flick to the metal arm that hung from Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky knows without looking that the rusted, useless prosthesis had to look bad. It had ceased function 3 months after coming out of the water, the whirring cogs caked with rust and grime, the shining surface scratched and dull. He hated it, hated the weight of it, and if he thought that he could have gotten away with removing it without exposing himself to an infection he would have. He swallows around the lump in his throat and speaks. “I-is that really you?”

If only Zola could see him now. His motor functions and speech skills are as bad as his broken robotics, and he knows it. Part of him doesn’t keep the slur out of his voice as a matter of pure pride—the words he spoke were his, and his alone, and he could keep the exhaustion in them if he so chose. But he knew as his knees started to tremor that the slur of his speech was not his choice, and soon, standing wouldn’t be, either.

“Steve, I don’t…what…I can’t…” he mutters, exhaustion overcoming him, and his knees buckle and he falls, expecting the ground but instead, Steve’s hands steady his shoulders.  

“It’s okay, Bucky, I got you,” Steve says, and Bucky's face flushes slightly; he didn’t know the Winter Soldier knew how to blush. But as he slides his hand behind Steve’s back—for _support,_ he tells himself—he hears himself say “I don’t understand what’s happened to me, Steve,” and the fear he’s held back this whole time presses against his throat.

Steve’s hand tightens around his bicep, his other hand pulling Bucky closer to him, and Bucky feels like a child, unable to stand, unwilling to walk, clinging hopelessly to the organic warmth.

Steve sighs. “I don’t know, but it’s okay,” he says, and shifts him over to help him walk. “I’ll help you now.”

Bucky nods, possibly only in his head, and allows himself to be carried away. He has no plan, no backups, and for the first time in his life, he doesn’t give a shit what happens next.


End file.
